DTS-HD Decoder for PC

DTS bring the movies watching experience to another level since DVD and had been the mainstream ever since. However, for PC user to experience the full potential of DTS, it's very tedious and picky. First, you will need to bitstream the audio in DTS using spdif, then your amplifier and speaker system also need to be DTS certified. Lack either one of it, then the link is totally broken. But, after reading the following news at lav website, I started googling around for more information.

"DTS-HD and the ArcSoft DTS Decoder

If you’re lucky enough to own a copy of ArcSoft’s TotalMedia Theater, there is some good news for you. In combination with the DTS decoder from TMT, LAV Audio is capable of full high quality DTS-HD decoding.

DTS-HD is the most common audio format to be found on Blu-rays, and before LAV Audio, it was quite a chore to get full decoding of this format – not anymore.

With LAV Audio, decoding DTS-HD is as simple as decoding any other audio format. You just need to get the “dtsdecoderdll.dll” from your “Codecs” directory inside the TMT installation, and drop it inside the directory you installed LAV Audio to. Thats all!"

If I understand correctly, this ArcSoft DTS Decoder seem to decode the DTS and DTS-HD on the PC and send to the amplifier as PCM (loseless audio format). Since the audio is sent in PCM format, it mean that the amplifier doesn't need to be DTS certified. Which mean that it improve our audio quality when watching movies on PC. In order to get the ArcSoft DTS Decoder, you need to get a copy of ArcSoft TotalMedia Theatre from http://www.arcsoft.com/totalmedia-theatre/

Technical Results
So, after getting myself a copy of ArcSoft TotalMedia Theatre, I copy the "dtsdecoderdll.dll" to the same folder where "LAVAudio.ax" located. For this, you need to be using LAV Audio decoder as the main audio decoder which is by default in the latest K-Lite or CCCP (i personally recommend CCCP over K-Lite). Or you can try my personal prefer Media Player setup here:
http://casualnfunentertainment.blogspot.com/2013/06/media-player-setup-for-pc.html

We will first look at some screenshots to see the technical differences before and after using "dtsdecoderdll.dll":

Before using "dtsdecoderdll.dll":

After using "dtsdecoderdll.dll":

From these screenshots, we can notice that before using "dtsdecoderdll.dll", it can only decode the audio up to 48kHz. However, after using the "dtsdecoderdll.dll", it is able to decode the audio as how it is originally recorded (which is 192kHz for this violin concert but for movies it is usually just 24bit/48kHz).

Listening Results on DTS-HD MA
That's enough for the technical results. Listening test is still the most important. I listened to few different audios, live recordings and movies that have DTS-HD MA audio. When comparing to LAV Audio, the differences is like day and night. The audio produced by "dtsdecoderdll.dll" just has so much more details and realistic feel to it. The effect just have more power in them. When comparing to Ffdshow Audio, the differences is not so significant as comparing to LAV Audio. But, the audio produced by "dtsdecoderdll.dll" still has more details and realistic feel in it. The effect also have more power in them.

Listening Results on DTS
I think many users will like to know whether the "dtsdecoderdll.dll" improve normal DTS audio quality also as most of the mkv movies has their audio strip down to 1.5Mbps DTS only. I tried few mkv and old DVD iso that has DTS audio. And the answer is yes, the improvement is the same as on DTS-HD MA. I heard day and night different when comparing to LAV Audio and heard some improvement when comparing to Ffdshow Audio.

Verdict
- The "dtsdecoderdll.dll" is the best DTS decoder on PC that I had tried so far.
- The audio produced by "dtsdecoderdll.dll" has more details and realistic feel.
- The "dtsdecoderdll.dll" is even able to decode the audio above 48kHz (up to 192kHz in the test, maybe I don't have higher quality audio file)